It was the timely disaster management skills shown by teachers of government schools in Jawahar Nagar that lives of hundreds of children were saved on Monday.

A major tragedy was averted as suddenly a fire broke out in the kitchen area of Government Primary School, Jawahar Nagar, when the process of cooking midday meal was on.

The leakage in gas pipe is being cited as the reason. However, the timely action taken by school teachers, nearby shopkeepers and teachers from neighbouring Jawahar Lal Nehru Government Girls Senior Secondary School helped in evacuating the kids to safety.

Talking to Newsline, Anju Soni, chemistry lecturer from the neighbouring school who along with teachers Rupinder Kaur, Sandeep Kumar and peon Amarjit Kumar ran to douse the flames, said, “We just saw huge flames coming out of the nearby school as we share the same wall. We immediately remembered our disaster management training session and carried two fire extinguishers to the spot and doused the fire.”

Teachers from the same school also took swift action and threw earthen flower pots with fresh wet soil in the flames which lessened the intensity. As per headmistress of school, Amarjit Kaur, the fire tenders reached almost after half an hour and till the time flames were already doused by teachers.

“I got panicky but my staff did not. Nearby shopkeepers helped us a lot to evacuate kids,” she said.

Tarsem Banga, midday meal manager of the district, visited the school. Talking to Newsline, he said, “The gas pipe was not old as in December last we gave Rs 1,000 to each school to get pipes changed. Also, we have provided each school with a fire extinguisher for kitchen and that was used well in time.”